Anthony Albanese and Donald Trump met a reception for world leaders hosted by the US president on Tuesday night in New York, hours after they locked in a commitment to hold a formal meeting in Washington DC next month.
The meeting has been set for 20 October, the White House confirmed. It will be the third time in six months the prime minister has travelled to the US.
The meeting was confirmed after Albanese had been left off the president’s schedule in New York this week.
On Tuesday, Trump hosted the reception for leaders on the sidelines of the UN general assembly, along with first lady Melania Trump. Albanese was accompanied by his partner, Jodie Haydon.
The Guardian understands Albanese and Trump discussed their meeting scheduled for next month.
At that meeting, Albanese and Trump are expected to discuss the Aukus nuclear submarine deal, Trump’s demands for Australia to spend as much as 3.5% of GDP on defence, and trade tariffs being imposed by the US.
Sign up: AU Breaking News email
The news came after Trump used his speech to the UN on Tuesday to dismiss moves by allies including Australia to recognise Palestinian statehood, insisting world leaders should instead demand the return of hostages taken by Hamas in the 7 October attacks.
Blasting international efforts to fight climate change as a scam, the US president used a major address to the UN in New York to mock the measuring of carbon footprints as a “hoax made up by people … with evil intentions”.
Albanese and the foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, represented Australia at the general assembly, listening as Trump criticised countries accepting overseas migrants and lamenting that ending the war in Ukraine was a harder task than he had expected.
Leaders laughed and took photos during the sometimes rambling 57-minute speech, one which had all the hallmarks of Trump’s campaign rally style and included a series of insults for the UN itself. He mocked predecessors Barack Obama and Joe Biden and mentioned a bid by his supporters for Trump to be awarded the Nobel peace prize.
“If you don’t [move] away from the green energy scam, your country is going to fail,” Trump said.
He called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” and hit out at wind turbines and other renewables infrastructure.
“All of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong.”
Despite the majority of UN countries recognising Palestine – including France, Canada, the UK and Australia in a major conference this week – Trump talked for the same length about the war in Gaza as he did about a broken escalator and a faulty teleprompter at the UN’s headquarters.
“Now, as if to encourage continued conflict, some of this body is seeking to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state.
“Instead of giving in to Hamas’s ransom demands, those who want peace should be united with one message: Release the hostages now.”
Countries recognising Palestine, including Australia, routinely called for an end to the war and for the remaining hostages to be brought home immediately.
On migration, Trump warned countries they were being ruined by newly arrived populations, even claiming some in the UK were seeking sharia law.
after newsletter promotion
“Your countries are going to hell,” he said.
He appeared to insult the UN during its 80th anniversary year, claiming member states were not doing enough to assist his efforts at securing peace around the world.
“What is the purpose of the United Nations?” Trump said. “It has such tremendous, tremendous potential. But it’s not even coming close to living up to that potential.”
Trump’s attacks on climate change policies and green energy came a few hours before Albanese used an event hosted by Macquarie to pitch for investment in mining and process critical mineral reserves in Australia.
Hosted by the bank’s Australian chief executive, Shemara Wikramanayake, Albanese will use the event to sell the government’s Future Made in Australia agenda and announce a summit hosted by the climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, and the industry minister Tim Ayres for potential investors.
“The world’s shift to clean energy represents the biggest change since the industrial revolution,” Albanese will say.
“We are looking at ever-increasing global demand for clean energy and the technology that generates and stores it.”
Australia’s ambassador to Washington, Kevin Rudd, and Albanese’s partner, Jodie Haydon, will join the event, along with a slew of business leaders.
It will come hours before the prime minister attends a cocktail reception hosted by Trump and his wife, Melania.
On the sidelines of the meeting, Albanese spoke with leaders including Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto, James Marape of Papua New Guinea and Nato secretary general Mark Rutte.
